A touch of Southern Hospitality

This past Sunday, “Widget” and I delivered the RV-1 to KSAV (Savannah.Hilton Head International Airport) for a session with the recently chartered EAA Chapter 1514. Bob MacDonald was this host. And a most accomodating host at that, I might add.

Upon arrival, he was waiting for us at the appointed location and already had jets being removed from a really nice hangar to accomodate “The ONE”. Remember, this is the airport where you might go to pick up your recently purchased Gulfstream “whatever”. So they believe in treating people right.

The plan was to leave “The ONE” there and return on Wednesday for the Chapter event. With initial plans taking me to another airport Wednesday morning in the opposite direction, I was on a tight schedule to finish up and fly the RV6 down to Savannah and give a presentation. As I was afraid, weather got bad and totally changed my plans and eventually leading to me DRIVING to Savannah. Oh well, the show must go on!

The presentation was well received I have been told. I noted a couple of typos on some of the material but other than that it was excellent. The Powerpoint presentation that was used has audio from Van “hisself” so the main thing that I did was the intro slides and the wrapup slides with a few bits about my experiences with “The ONE”.

Since many in the audience were Gulfstream engineers, there were some rather specific questions that I had to honestly answer with “I have no clue … I fly it based on experience and feel.” After all, this plane was done before some of the modern marvels of aircrat design that I am sure are in use at Gulfstream by members of Chapter 1514.

During the presentation everyone had their pick of pizza so I had a captive audience! And for some reason, someone got the impression that I liked talking!!! In any case, they were most gracious and said that they really enjoyed the presentation. Next many of us went into the hangar to look at “The ONE” up close. I was even asked to pose for a few pictures. Rumor has it that this will make the next issue of their newsletter. Hopefully this will include some nice pictures.

In summary, a great time was had. We went a bit longer than was expected, I believe, as the “business meeting” that was to happen later seemed to have been cut short in deference to more time with “The ONE”.

As the event ended and we were walking out to our cars (remember, I drove), Bobo pointed out to me said “If you would have flown in, THAT was to be your car.” A vintage Porche! Do they know how to treat a fella right?!!

Thanks again to EAA Chapter 1514, newly minted and full of enthusiam. In their own way, they are maintaining the high bar set by the previous stop for this most deserving piece of aviation history.